Post-Islamist Approach to Veiling: Islamic Hijab from an Ethical Perspective Queen s University, March 2015
. Unlike Islamists such as Ali Shariati and Ruhollah Khomeini, post-islamist reformists do believe that Muslim have to take into account morality in order to arrive at justified and plausible account of religion and jurisprudence in the contemporary world. According to these reformists, jurisprudential maxims must be evaluated from an ethical perspective in order to be regarded as legitimate maxims, religiously and jurisprudentially speaking.
Apart from jurisprudential approach, Islamic Hijab can be discussed and talked about from ethical perspective as well, the attitude which is associated with post-islamists' agenda towards jurisprudence from a broader perspective. The permissibility of unveiling from ethical perspective is discussed in this talk. The views of the Islamic jurists and the Koran s commentators who believe that unveiling is permissible is talked about. Moreover, I will examine the idea of Hijab in terms of The Ethics of Prima Facie Duties, the ethical theory of the British philosopher W.D. Ross, as discussed in The Right And The Good and Foundations of Ethics.
The relationship between religion and morality in the Abrahamic religions is a much-discussed subject in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion. Some theorists believe that morality is primarily based on religion. Others insist that morality is not primarily based on religion. In order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the relationship between religion and morality, let us apply Descartes principle; i.e., dividing a difficulty into parts to resolve it. Inductive reasoning allows us to speak of a semantic relationship, an ontological relationship, an epistemological relationship between religion and morality
To say that morality is semantically based on religion means that moral notions, such as fairness, unfairness, good, bad, ought, ought not, etc. can only be understood in the light of scripture. This means that moral notions have no independent and inherent definitions. In the opposite camp, theorists who hold that morality is not semantically based on religion are of the view that moral notions can have meanings without reference to scripture
The theorists who maintain that morality is ontologically based on religion believe that the materialization and delineation of moral values in the world around us hinges on the will of God. If God wills it, moral values, such as good, bad, etc. come into being. Then, attributing goodness to honesty and badness to dishonesty, for instance, will be in keeping with the will of God and we can seek them in the world around us. In the Islamic tradition, the Ash arites believed, in this sense, that morality was ontologically based on religion and could not exist independently of God s will. If God willed that something was good, it was good and if God willed that something was bad, it was bad. It was the attachment of God s will to something that gave it moral substance. And, without God s will, moral values would not exist in the world; as a result of which, we would be unable to formulate moral judgments.
In the opposite camp, the Mu tazilites were of the view that morality was not ontologically based on religion. They believed that moral notions were intrinsically and rationally good or bad, and that it was possible to make judgments about their existence in the world and to delineate them independently of scripture and based on rational discoveries and teachings.
The epistemological relationship between morality and religion ( jurisprudence) reveals how we can arrive at valid moral knowledge. Theorists who believe that morality is epistemologically based on religion deny the epistemological validity of moral claims that have been derived without recourse to and reliance on scripture. Take, for example, the moral proposition, It is a duty to keep a promise. Anyone who believes that morality is epistemologically based on religion will only accept this moral proposition if it is justified on the basis of religious teachings. In other words, rational moral precepts and judgments, which have been derived from Reason Alone, have no inherent validity and do not convey any information
In the opposite camp, those who hold that morality is not epistemologically based on religion such as Bentham, Kant, Moore, Ross, Hare, etc, whose position can be dubbed secular morality view rational moral precepts favourably and organize their conception of morality around them. These theorists are of the view that the epistemological validity of a moral claim such as: it is duty to keep your promise is attained using epistemological resources such as practical reason, rational evidence, etc.
There have been numerous debates on women s Hijab over centuries by religious figures and scholars. In Shiite tradition, Ahmad Ghabil and Mohsen Kadivar (two of Ayatollah Montazeri s outstanding pupils, who were conferred the name of Mujtahed by him), unlike the dominant reading, believe that no evidence can be extracted from the verses of the Quran in regards to firm laws of covering the head and neck by women. According to Ghabil, wearing the Hijab, primarily, was the sign of identity for free women at the time of prophet Mohammad. Abdolali Bazargan and Ahmad Torkashvand, contemporary commentators of the Quran states that hijab in the Quran does not necessarily mean covering the head, hair and neck but it simply denotes covering those body members that may sexually stimulate men. It follows from that that the dominant Fatwas with regard to Hijab could be reconsidered, jurisprudentially speaking.
In Sunni tradition, there are Muslim scholars like Nasr Hamed Abuzeid, Mohamamd Abed- Aljaberi, Ahmad Sobhi Mansur and Mohammad Saeed Ashmaavi who believe that wearing the hijab is not necessary nowadays, hermeneutically and jurisprudentially speaking. According to them, covering hair and neck, primarily, was the sign of identity at the time of prophet Mohammad. Moreover, the moral obligation of veiling cannot be understood from the verses of Noor and Ahzaab in Koran. However, all Muslims are required to lower their gaze and guard their modesty. Also, the concepts khomor, jalaabib and tabarroj do not mean covering the head and neck necessarily, semantically speaking. It follows from this that, unveiling, would be plausible, ethically speaking.
. It is also to be mentioned that from ethical perspective, and according to the majority of ethicists, it is quite vivid that the mandatory hijab is against the freedom of choice and hence morally wrong and impermissible. In Shiite tradition, Mohammad Ayaazi, Ayatollah Montazeri s outstanding pupil, does believe that compulsory Hijab, unlike optional Hijab, is wrong, jurisprudentially speaking.
Hijab from the philosophical aspect: This issue has to be talked about in normative ethics
The Ethics of Prima Facie Duties
The doctrine of "an ethics of prima facie duties," is presented by W. D. Ross (1930 & 1939) to clarify the problem of moral conflict. According to Ross, the problem of moral conflict is best understood in terms of conflict between competing moral considerations. Moral conflict arises when the situation we are dealing with possesses more than one morally relevant non-moral property which pull in opposite directions.
In order to decide what our actual duty is, we have to find out which relevant non-moral property is more important from the moral point of view. But, says Ross, we do not have a basic general principle to say in advance which prima facie duty is overriding because the weight or importance or magnitude of the relevant non-moral features of the situation may vary from case to case, though its valence; i.e. the way in which it contributes to the moral evaluation of different cases is invariant.
1. There are several prima facie duties which are general. These are duties to respond to morally relevant features that contribute to the moral evaluation of concrete ethical situations in a regular way. 2.. The list of prima facie duties is open-ended. 3. These prima facie duties are underived and fundamental in the sense that they cannot be reduced to more basic duties. 4. There is no such thing as a lexical order and hierarchy for these prima facie duties. They can combine together and contribute to the moral evaluation of different cases in different ways.
In order to arrive at a justified moral judgment or an actual duty in a concrete ethical situation, we have to use our intuitions. By intuition, Ross refers to a source of knowledge which is perceptual and noninferential. As there is no lexical order between prima facie duties, we cannot arrive at justified moral judgments through rules governing prima facie duties and their combinations.
The List of Prima Facie Duties: Fidelity, gratitude, non-maleficence, justice, self-improvement, reparation, beneficence Derived prima facie duties: Truth-telling, citizenship.
What about the moral relevance of wearing the Hijab? In order to answer this question, lets us the distinction between thick moral concepts and thin moral concepts : Beneficence, fidelity, non-maleficence/ good, bad, right, wrong, duty
Modesty or Chastity is a thick moral concept. We can regard it as a derived prima facie duty in the Rossian framework. The prima facie duty which consists of: Fidelity, non-maleficence and selfimprovement It follows from this being chaste is a prima facie duty, which makes our actual duty, other things being equal.
I am inclined to conclude that not wearing head, hair and neck does not reject the prima facie duty modesty and chastity for woman nowadays, intuitively speaking. It follows from this that not wearing the Hijab and unveiling is not wrong and implausible, morally speaking. Moreover, it does not follow from this that wearing the hijab is unethical, categorically speaking. There are lot of cases in which wearing the Hijab would be permissible and ethical. However, if wearing the Hijab is overridden by another prima facie duty in an ethical context, say non-maleficence, for instance; it would be wrong to wear the Hijab according to the Rossian story.
Having seen the arguments which are presented in this talk, I am going to conclude that wearing the Hijab is not necessary morally speaking.